Some customers come straight from the office, or come on their lunch breaks.

Some customers come straight from the office, or come on their lunch breaks.

Photo: The Anger Room

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Watching from a safe distance.

Watching from a safe distance.

Photo: The Anger Room

Houstonians could soon be able to vent their frustrations in a new way

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Have you ever dreamed of having a room all to yourself to smash all your frustrations into tiny bits? A Dallas woman could soon make those dreams a reality in Houston.

Anger Room owner Donna Alexander says that her Dallas-based stress-relief business could soon be coming to Houston to aid in the stress management of Houstonians. Alexander’s Anger Room allows paying customers to come by and spend a few minutes in a room of their choosing to smash up a variety of inanimate objects.

For $25, customers can get five minutes of time in the room to do as they wish. That figure ramps up depending on how many minutes customers need. You can even order up custom rooms ahead of time for your smashing preference.

“They can call ahead and get a room customized however they would like for an added fee,” says Alexander. “Some people want an office, a kitchen, a dining room. We have one called :the glass house” which is full of glass and ceramic knickknacks.” Rooms are on average 10 feet by 10 feet, any smaller and things would get dangerous, Alexander says.

After Alexander opened up the Anger Room nearly three years ago it soon became an international phenomenon, with news outlets from all over the web coming by to watch everyday people come and smash things to vent their frustrations of modern life. The Huffington Post and the Associated Press came by to gander at customers wielding baseball bats and hammers in their own little rooms.

Right now the Anger Room is closed while Alexander looks for a new location, but its hoping to reopen by the fall. A Houston Anger Room is in the cards for Alexander. She says that lots of people from the Bayou City said they made the drive just for its services.

“We had a lot of people from Houston specifically to make a full day of breaking stuff,” said Alexander. Alexander is scouting out Houston these days, after seeing the amount of Houstonians who came to visit, and there have also been inquiries from the curious in California and New York City.

As for Dallas, the city seemed to have embraced it when it was open. Alexander says that even police officers and prison guards were a big part of her clientele.

Alexander would supply the rooms with items found on street corners or donated by the public, perhaps wanting to give their home goods a chance to aid in the mental health of others.

“We accept donations online and sometimes we go around on trash days and pick up stuff to use,” Alexander says. The Anger Room provides the weapons and the safety gear, which is of course mandatory. Sometimes customers would get cuts and bruises if they weren’t careful of flying debris. That’s why customers sign waivers.

“You can use bats, skillets, golf clubs, tennis rackets, crow bars, anything you can use as a weapon,” says Alexander. ” No guns, no sharp objects and nothing gas powered is all we ask.”

The Dallas location closed in January so that Alexander could look for new digs. Alexander says that location was in a rough neighborhood, and scared some customers away.

The Chicago native always thought about a place where people go and vent. When she moved to Dallas she finally made it a reality.

“I had lots of friends who had went to jail for violent offenses, so a place for people to vent frustrations on objects and not people seemed natural,” says Alexander. Her favorite things to break are glass plates and cups, old tube TV work for her too.

Her average customer, she says, is a nine-to-fiver that works in the corporate world or the hospitality industry. She’s seen so many different backgrounds come through, from high level executives to waiters at local restaurants. Peak hours are weekday afternoons and right after 5 p.m. The weekends are always brisk. One of Alexander’s most surprising groups of visitors are bachelorette parties.

The Anger Room isn’t just for worker bees either, she says.

“A lot of doctors and therapists would come by and use our services and then refer their clients if they had anger issues,” she says.

Many times child psychologists would refer teen boys to come by and visit, with parental supervision of course. That’s why she lowered the age to 13 from 18 years. People with tragic pasts that they were trying to work through would use the rooms to exorcise inner demons. Alexander says that it got loud, with screaming coming from the rooms sometimes.

“Naysayers said it wasn’t healthy, but they clearly had not tried it,” she says.

There seem to be differing opinions on the the therapeutic nature of something like the Anger Room.

“Although I can certainly see the benefits of “venting” or “purging” anger and frustration I do not think overall I would recommend this as a viable way to cope with anger,” says Houston counselor Catrin Glynn. “I am also not a fan of perpetuating violence in a any form as a way to cope with anger.” Physical exertion, Glynn adds, of a positive nature — such as running — would be far more therapeutic.

“Anger is a defensive emotional response to pain. The source of the pain needs to be confronted and dealt with,” says Glynn.

Houston psychiatrist Dr. James Paskowitz doesn’t exactly rule out completely that taking a bat to a television set would clear your head.

“There is the idea that anger is on such a primal level that it cannot be dealt with just through words, and action is often necessary. I frequently bring up the idea of physical activity to be able to get out anger and it can be quite helpful, so this “anger room” could be a good idea,” Paskowitz said via email.

Out in Spring, a venture quite like the Anger Room has popped up, attached to a leather shop.

Greg Olsen, 25, and his wife own a similar business in Spring, connected to a custom leather working and embroidery shop called Rage Fit.

His “Relief Room” is 7 feet wide and 16 feet long and features a wall covered in river rock which customers can throw bottles and vases against. Only two people are allowed at a time in the room. It’s open five days a week. His customer base ranges from bikers coming by to pick up leather goods to curious grandmothers wanting to see what its all about. Prices start at $25 and go up depending on how much you want to break and for how long.

Like the Anger Room, Olsen also gets the items that are to be broken from donations. Unlike the Anger Room, Olsen says that his room is based on the Gestalt therapy that he says did wonders for him as a rage-filled teen. He doesn’t allow bats or other weapons inside the small room.

Olsen wants to emphasize the “relief” aspect of his room, not the anger-purging. The connotation of an “anger room” bothers him. He’s helping relieve customers of the anger that is building up in their heads.

“A lot of people find it embarrassing or difficult to let out their primal feelings,” says Olsen. “When I have a bad day I will break something in the room to break up the anger in my brain.”

The walls in the Relief Room are painted matte black to “invoke dark thoughts” Olsen says, and there is soft lighting. When something is broken, a light will flash, which he says is comforting for users. Customers may also listen to music over a speaker system inside. He’s heard everything from death metal to Britney Spears since he opened six months back.